CentOS 5 :: Scheduled Unattended Backups With Alerts If The Backups Fail
Feb 3, 2011
I've been a DOS/Windows guy for 20 years, and recently became a SW test lab helper. My company uses CentOS for a lot, so I've become familiar with it, but obviously not as comfortable as I am with Windows.
Here's what I have planned:
machine: Core 2 Duo E8400, 8GB DDR2, 60GB SSD OS drive, ATI 4650 video card, other storage is flexible (I have 3 1TB drives and 4 750GB drives around that can be used in this machine.)
uses: HTPC, Network Storage, VMWare server host: SMTP, FTP server, and Web server virtual machines
I've figured out how to do much of this, but I haven't figured out how to do backups in Linux. I've been spoiled with Windows, with the built in backup system so simple to use. I find myself overwhelmed with the array of backup software, and unable to determine which to use. none of them seem to do everything I need them to do, but some come close, I think. I'm hoping someone here can help me out in figuring out which program to use and how to use it.
Here is what I need the backup software to do:
1. scheduled unattended backups, with alerts if the backups fail
2. a weekly full backup with incremental every 12 hours
3. removing the old backups when the new full backup runs, I would prefer to keep 2 weeks of backups, but that's not necessary
4. a GUI would be preferable, since my arthritic fingers don't always do as I want them to do. I typo things a lot, and the label worn off my backspace can attest to that.
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Nov 12, 2009
How do you get Rsync to do incremental backups rather than full backups? At the moment I have a script that will create a backup folder (if it doesnt already exist) then copy the source files into the backup directory with the command
rsync $VERBOSE --exclude=$TARGET/ $EXCLUDE --exclude '/Ls-wtgl1c8/**' -rt --delete $source/ $TARGET/$source/ >> $LOG_FILE
Target is where the files will be backed up to Sources is the dir(s) to be backed up Exclude files is the list of files not to backup
log file is where the output will be saved to. At the moment it only does full backups, but I would only like to do incremental, how would this be achieved? Am I missing out an option in the Rsync that is required.
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Sep 26, 2010
A junior question: What is the use of /etc/passwd- & /etc/group-? Backups? I delete them, and they will come out again.
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Nov 11, 2009
I would like to replace my aging Freenas box with a CentOS based NAS. I would like it to have the following features:
- SAMBA with Web admin
- BIND with Web admin
- Nice to have would be native AFP support for my MAC
Question 1: Is SWAT still the current Web-based config tool for SAMBA or is there something newer?
Question 2: Is there a decent, reliable, web front end for BIND?
Question 3: Is there a current AFP guide for CentOS, everything I am finding via Google is years old.
I would also like to build a second server that I would host off-site to sync my data to.
- I was thinking OpenVPN for the link between the servers. The "remote" NAS will have to be the one initiating the connection.
Question 4: Is OpenVPN the way to go or is there something better? (I need bidirectional communications)
Question 5: Is rsync still the way to go for the data sync or is there something newer which would be lighter and/or faster?
Just need some "current" advice overall - I think the last SAMBA box I built was 4-5 years ago so what I learned then may not be applicable today.
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Nov 17, 2010
I backed my photographs with K3B in Suse, prior to installing Ubuntu. Now I can't access them. Well I can but not with Ubuntu or Windows 7. Suse (KDE) on the family computer reads them with no problem?? I'm confused. Is there something that KDE has that Debian doesn't. there's nothing wrong with my system exept for this. Reads cd's and dvd's.
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Mar 21, 2010
I have a crontab related question which I am hoping someone can answer. I recently took over a Redhat Enterprise 5 Server, and I was told by the previous Server Admin that there is a cron job that does the backups. I ran the following command to get a list of all users:
Code:
cat /etc/passwd | grep "/home" |cut -d: -f1
I then ran the following command for each of those users to see if they have any crontabs associated with them:
Code:
crontab -u USER -l
It doesn't show any crontab entries for any users (including root). But I am positive that there is a scheduled job somewhere because the backups are still running every night.
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Jul 8, 2010
With so many filesystems available which one should I use to make backups? All I care about is reliability and stability. I don't care at all about portability.
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Oct 19, 2009
I was doing some downloads of ISO's to burn & try on another machine. I went to use FF & it wouldn't open. I thought what the heck, I just use it. So in the process of checking I ran it in a terminal & got this error:
Code:
/usr/lib/firefox-3.0.14/run-mozilla.sh: line 131: 2740 Segmentation fault "$prog" ${1+"$@"}
Plus my lvm's were giving me fits so I ran "touch /forcefsck" & it found a bunch of crossed files. In the process of "fixing" I believe that my backup images may have been in that crossed mess as all the 1 of 2 files are "zeroK" files now. I think I have the lvm fixed (for now, as that piece of junk acts up every whipstitch) so how do I get my FF working again?
I tried a "reinstall" with no luck. I found out I have a bigger problem as well. It seems that the "zeroK" file thing got my backups I need to restore my machine to do my homework under my XP & such. Is there a way to recover these files (that I don't know of) or am I screwed like I think? - needless to say, if I have to rebuilt the F10, there won't be any of that LVM junk!
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Dec 1, 2009
As you know everywhere we create a new file ,immediately a backup file with suffix ~ will be created with it if we open the file , i deleted a file but always i have problem with its backup how can delete them with deleting the file?
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Jun 7, 2011
I currently have a setup which allows me to connect to all computers on my home network via SSH and RSA keys. I'm very security-conscious, so all of my keys are passphrase protected. I'd like to essentially set something up where I'm running Unison on a cron job to back up to a file server on my network, which we'll call timmy. I've noticed that the first time I try to use a key on my Ubuntu laptop teeks, I get a dialog which pops up asking me to type in my key passphrase. I've heard that for servers needing to make automated backups like this that one should use ssh-agent to ask for the key passphrase on login/server start. How can I set this up on teeks?
I'd essentially like to have the following happen:When I boot and come into the OS, prompt visually for the passphrase as is done when I first use a key.If I SSH into this computer (as it's internet-facing) and I haven't provided the SSH passphrase yet, then prompt for it. (Sometimes, I might need to remotely reboot the machine over SSH, so I'll be SSH'ing into it after it reboots and I'd like to be able to authenticate the key without having to VNC in and do it manually.)
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Mar 17, 2010
What will it be? I will use Clonezilla as the backup software, but I want to be able to see the backups from both Linux and windows.
Is fat32 an option? I have very large files(game isos and stuff like that)
If fat32 isn't an option, what filesystem should I use?
I read this thread but it doesnt mention the software to use and I assume we wants only to be able to see it in Linux.
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Apr 23, 2010
What would be the best way to have automated system backups? I'm trying to get it so my Xubuntu box automatically backs up the entire system including user settings on regular intervals, what would be the best way to do it? I have 2 hard drives with one that I do not use that I'd like to backup to.
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May 9, 2010
I am currently backing up my data but find that it takes way to long to do a rsync, it takes forever to just find the differences and transfer them.Out of 3 separate rsyncs the main one that is slow is my www.skins.be mirror directory which is 41GB and has 392,200 files, sorted into multiple directories. Which grows by around 100 every couple days.I think that something that would be able to track changes by inotify time on directories will speed it up since Picasa sure finds the changes fast when I open it and it is tracking over 26,200 pictures. I just don't know of a backup solution that does that.
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Oct 24, 2010
First Question: I have a very big volume (20+TB). When I try formatting it as ext4, I get the error message:
mke2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010) mkfs.ext4: Size of device /dev/sdc1 too big to be expressed in 32 bits using a blocksize of 4096. I understand that ext4 has a limit of 1EB (about a million terabytes), but a 32-bit limitation in e2fsprogs prevents me from creating a partition > 16TB.
Until e2fsprogs is updated to use 48-bit block addressing, it appears my choices are:Break up the volume into smaller volumes < 16TB, or Use xfs or zfs (I have already created a test xfs partition, and it works fine).
Does anyone have any opinions about which option is preferable? I have never used xfs before. Is it as robust as ext4? Is it as well supported by Ubuntu? What about zfs? Is it worth downloading from the ppa?
Second Question: I now have a huge amount of data to back up. In the old days, I remember making a full backup of a "big" 10 MB hard drive by taking a stack of floppies and inserting them one at a time into my floppy drive while my backup program split the backup into 1.4 MB chunks small enough to fit on a floppy.
I now have the same problem, but at a different scale. I need to back up 20+TB onto a stack of external 2TB drives. Is there any software package that can fragment a backup in this way?
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Oct 25, 2010
I just read in my Linux+ resources that it is not a wise idea to compress tar files with gzip if my tape drive supports compression. In addition, the resources mention that using gzip for tar files runs the risk of data lost if an error occurs with the compression.
Does anyone compress tar files for major backups/restore policies?
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Nov 25, 2010
I'm having some trouble to find a file system that allows me to backup my data to an external HD, and then access this data in other Linux (and sometimes windows and mac) machines.
The file system that I'm looking for must:
- have no user permissions: anyone can do anything with the data;
- have support to large files: I've used FAT for a while but it just sucks;
- maybe support access in windows and or mac with additional drivers;
- have journaling (or something of the sorts) to reduce the risk of data loss.
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Jan 8, 2011
when you do a barrybackup where do the backups go when completed?
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Mar 21, 2011
I have two 500GB externals and a 200GB internal HDDs for my desktop. One of the 500s is solely for backups of my desktop, netbook, and laptop. The other 500 is pretty much my "everything" drive. Literally everything (music, movies/videos, pictures, documents, etc) get saved to this external so I can access it on all my machines. The internal 200GB on my desktop is pretty much only used for temporary downloads, the OS (obviously) and things like that.
Here's what I'd like to do:
I used deja dup to create a back up of my /home and my "everything" 500 onto the "back ups only" 500 but once I let my paranoia simmer for a second I thought, "what if my back up HDD fails?!" So I want to have two redundant backups on separate drives. First I figured I'd just chuck it on the other "everything" 500 but then I thought that since I'm using barely any room on the internal 200, I could just store a backup there. So that's my plan. My problem is that deja dup only really allows one location to run the scheduled backups.
I saw this post: [url]
and think I could just do that for the redundant backup? Or is there a program I can get from the software center that allows me to schedule more than one backup on different locations? I looked into Back in Time but that's just a snapshot(?) and I didn't see a way to do what I liked...I think.
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Apr 30, 2011
I am looking for a SIMPLE point and click backup solution for Ubuntu. At work I manage a rather large Net Backup installation so I am not a complete idiot. Just very graphically dependent. I knew it was bound to happed as soon as the mouse came out. I installed backuppc. Read the docs/how-to's/tutorials for 90 minutes and have come to the conclusion that it simply is not worth the time effort or energy. I could not even figure out how to use backuppc to backup my Documents directory to a USB attached HDD. Now that is sad.
I currently use rsync over a network to backup up my Ubuntu laptop to a share on Server 2003. That is when it does not error out due to the difference in time stamps. Basically, I get a point in time backup, incrementals don't work.
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May 16, 2011
The reason I'm here today is because wine seems to have changed quite a bit. It used to be simple and I only need it for a couple of programs called dvd decrptor and dvd shrink. I've tried some programs in linux and haven't been able to get them to work, like DVD 5. It could be me, of course! So, I haven't been able to get wine to read my cd-rom hardware to where I can back up my dvds. Are there any solutions that anyone knows of on Wine or linux programs which I prefer? I did create an iso from a dvd with DVD 5, I believe, and then had it set up to burn with k3b. The first part of the dvd came up with the menus and music, but I could go no further than that. I figure there is some little something that I'm doing wrong or some bit of linux software suport for DVD 5 or k3b that I do not have. That's usually what it is.
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Jan 21, 2010
I am using rsync to backup dirs on my ubuntu server onto a NAS (which is mounted onto the filesystem), but the problem is that it is constantly doing full backups rather than doing incrementals and I am not really sure why. After doing a bit of expermienting with the script I noticed that if I just backed up a home dir (/home/user) the incremental backups work fine. If however I was to back up a dir like (/home/domain/user) it always does full backups.I have tried various different scripts but still the same end result. The latest script is a variation on the a script found on the samba rsync examples webpage, see below...
#!/bin/bash
# rsyncbu.sh -- backup to nas using rsync
# This script backups files listed in BDIR to the BSERVER. The verbose output along with the date is listed in the LOG_FILE specified
# verbose output
[code]....
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Mar 1, 2010
I have a small IT consulting business and I am finding many of my clients couldn't afford Microsoft solutions and thus, going without... So a revelation hit me that I could offer Linux solutions, its just that I'm not a Linux guru... So after much research and installations of nearly every latest Linux distro, I decided on ClearOS as a good option for my clients that just require a good File/Print server, firewall and VPN solution... Everything was going fine until I got to the point where I was trying to get it to do backups to a USB drive... ClearOS does not come with the ability to do such, so from further research I found that I could install Webmin to handle that task and that it would not break ClearOS... Great, its just that its not working... It says its working, but its not.
[Code]...
Next I hit the "Save and Backup Now" button to test it out... all says it goes good... But when I check the device, there's nothing saved to it...
So I create another "Filesystem backup", I select the FlexShare directory that I want backed up and this time I select a local directory for the backup to go to... I hit the "Save and Backup Now" button to test it out. all says it goes good... But once again when I check the directory, there's nothing saved to it.
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Jul 1, 2010
So basically I have 6x 1TB drives in a Linux raid 5, and I have 2x 1.5TB drives running standalone and 1x 2TB drive.I want to backup weekly, data from the Raid 5 array to these independent disks. I configured 3 directories, one for each disk.
data1 => 2TB drive with 1.1TB of valuable data
data2 => First 1.5TB drive 430GB of tech tools and Linux ISO
data3 => Second 1.5TB 46GB of Misc items.
[code]....
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Mar 17, 2011
I currently use cp to backup data. I prefer it over rsync. I use the -b switch to make a backup of data and recently found you can use --backup=t to create numbered backups.Using --backup=t means that I could end up having 100 versions of a file if I change it 100 times. With the -b switch I will only ever have 2 versions. Is it possible to limit the numbered backups to 5 for example? So I would only ever have 5 versions?
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Mar 12, 2011
I have just purchased a 1 TB external hard disk to be used for backups. The backups will be performed with rsync and since I don't really care about accessing the data from other operating systems, I think I'll use ext3 on the partition. I'll just be backing up my home directory and probably /etc as well. In my home directory, I have a small number of files that are several GB, but most are tens of MB in size or less.
I'm just wondering if there are any special options I should pass when I create the filesystem with mkfs.ext3.
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Mar 3, 2010
I have a small IT consulting business and I am finding many of my clients couldn't afford Microsoft solutions and thus, going without... So a revelation hit me that I could offer Linux solutions, its just that I'm not a Linux guru... So after much research and installations of nearly every latest Linux distro, I decided on ClearOS as a good option for my clients that just require a good File/Print server, firewall and VPN solution... Everything was going fine until I got to the point where I was trying to get it to do backups to a USB drive... ClearOS does not come with the ability to do such, so from further research I found that I could install Webmin to handle that task and that it would not break ClearOS... Great, its just that its not working... It says its working, but its not...
So here's what I got, ClearOS 5.1 with Webmin 1.5
Here's what I have done to try to make it work after a good installation...
Under "Hardware" and "Partitions on Local Disks", it shows the USB drive as Device B... So I create a partion called "/dev/sdb1" Great, I'm thinking...
So I go to "System" and under "Filesystem backup", I select the FlexShare directory that I want backed up and then I select "/dev/sdb1" as the backup to device...
Next I hit the "Save and Backup Now" button to test it out... all says it goes good... But when I check the device, there's nothing saved to it...
So I create another "Filesystem backup", I select the FlexShare directory that I want backed up and this time I select a local directory for the backup to go to... I hit the "Save and Backup Now" button to test it out... all says it goes good... But once again when I check the directory, there's nothing saved to it...
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Nov 19, 2010
I am a Mac user since 1988. I recently discovered Linux Ubuntu and love it. So much that I use it about 95% of the time. On the Mac there is an application I use called Superduper which makes a bootable backup to an external USB drive.
Can I do the same kind of thing using the dd command? I use the excellent Cron GUI Scheduled Tasks. I was hoping that maybe I can use that to schedule nightly bootable backups. Is dd the right tool to use? Once the initial backup is done (which I understand can take a long time), does dd do incremental backups after that.
Looking forward to how I can set this up so that I can just set and forget reassured that bootable backups are occurring overnight.
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Dec 19, 2010
I have inherited a network server running Redhat Enterprise (4?) which uses an external USB drive for backups. These have been scheduled to run at midnight each night.I want to use 2 external drives to hold the backups (exchanging the usb drive each day). My question is: Is there anything I need to do to a new USB drive before exchanging the drives (eg. formatting etc) or can I simply just plug the new one in and let it run?I apologise for the very basic nature of this question but I have no clue about Linux.
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Apr 27, 2011
There are multiple servers to be backed up. Different access rights exist in each server. There are two backup servers with plenty of disk space, one local, and one offsite. The local one feeds to the offsite one. The rsync command is being used to make a replica of backed up data. Deleted data is also being archived. There are two methods that have been considered: One is to have the individual servers run rsync which logs in to the backup server to push data. Two is to have the backup server run rsync which logs in to each individual server to pull data. Because system data is involved and meta information (like owning user) must be stored, root is required to access the data as well as to store it. That means everything runs as root both ends. So method one was quickly dismissed because each server would effectively have rights to access ALL the data on the backup server since it logs into the backup server as root. The security containment here involves different groups using different servers, and they need to be isolated from each other.
But even method two involves some risks that are a concern. This means one machine has access rights to every server. If the backup server were compromised, every machine could be compromised.What I'd like to find is some way to allow backups to be run without either machine granting root access to the other, while still running as root, or something equivalent, that allows accessing all data and storing all metadata. So I was looking at setting up an rsync daemon on each individual server (running as root so it can access what it is specified to access), and running an rsync client on the backup server (as root so it can store metadata). This opens network access issues. Any user on the network can connect to the rsync daemon. So password protection is needed. But this communication is also not encrypted, which exposes the password and the data should the network be sniffed.
So now I'm thinking about a non-root ssh login between machines. The backup server would login to a non-privileged user on each individual server and set up a secure forwarding channel to the rsync daemon. Is this the best that can be done? Is there a way to run rsync via SSL with key verification so it can all be done together? I'd like to have the rsync daemons configured to always talk SSL, and always verify the client's key against a list of authorized keys, and likewise the client verify the server's key against the known public key for that server.
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Jan 29, 2010
Can I use rsync for incremental backups of the running linux server?
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